Novel pursuits

Strange new books for a brave new world

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Even though amazon.com's Jeff Bezos
claims his Kindle is an effort to "improve the book," maybe it doesn't
need to be improved upon. According to the results of a National
Endowment for the Arts study released earlier this year, the overall
rate at which adults are reading fiction rose by 7 percent between 2002
and 2008. This follows two decades of significantly declining
rates.

Of course, the Kindle first released in November 2007. Coincidence?
Until amazon.com releases some sales
figures, we'll never know. So, forget that mystery and get engrossed in
one of these new releases — in whatever form you prefer —
instead.

A book about books

The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri

David Bajo

Penguin, $15/paperback

Release: May 26

Philip Masryk, a mathematician, inherits 351 books from a lover who
has vanished. As he reads, Philip becomes wrapped up in learning the
truth about her disappearance and, somehow, gets stuck within the
novels' narratives. The Los Angeles Times calls this debut from
David Bajo an "intellectual thriller" about "the mystery of true,
unfettered love."

In an interview on thestraintrilogy.com,
writer/filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy)
sets up his new trilogy, Strain, saying, "When I was a kid
growing up ... I used to love reading a good vampire story. But a very
scary vampire story, none of this romantic, [languid] young men sucking
the necks of beautiful people. I loved the really chilling story of the
undead." Expect Strain and Hogan's vampires to be "menacing, real and
disgusting," and spreading a vampiric virus. (If the book is as well
done as the Web site, we're all going to be sucked right in.)

Alice Hoffman is the queen of magical realism. She weaves tales of
love and loss, family and friends with fantastical elements that make a
reader feel like she's living a dream. In The Story Sisters,
Hoffman follows three sisters — Elv, Claire and Meg — as
they grow from children to women, and the choices each must make along
the road.

Drop by theangelsgame.net
not only to find a trailer for Carlos Ruiz Zafón's new novel,
The Angel's Game, but also a haunting soundtrack for the book
that follows in the footsteps of Zafón's international
bestseller, The Shadow of the Wind. A gothic 1920s tale from the
streets of Barcelona, The Angel's Game introduces David
Martín, a novelist who accepts a lucrative offer to write a book
of magnificent power. But to what end?

In Wireless, Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross has
pulled together a collection of his short stories, along with a
previously unpublished novella. It's been said that "Stross has more
ideas than is probably healthy for one man," so trying to describe the
themes within Wireless is a bit of a challenge. Let's just say
if you're a fan of Neal Stephenson, Robert A. Heinlein or H.P.
Lovecraft, you might want to grab this one.

What was the world like 13,000 years ago? Kathleen O'Neal Gear and
W. Michael Gear, married archaeologists and authors, tell a prehistoric
story in Children of the Dawnland, through the eyes of
"12-summer-old" Twig. A "Dreamer girl" with powers to tell the future
must convince her people to leave their land based on nightmares she's
having — about the end of the Ice Age.

Neil Gaiman rocked the comics world by pairing up with artist Andy
Kubert for the first time since Marvel's 1602 for Batman:
Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? This hardcover collection,
which includes Gaiman's two-part Batman finale along with three of his
former stories, takes a close look at 70 years of Bruce Wayne.